Effects of the Rule Change From Three to Five Substitutions in the Bundesliga

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to massive restrictions and changes in many different areas of life, including professional sports. In football, many games were cancelled and then, with the unchanged maximum of three time-outs, five substitutions were allowed instead of three—initially temporarily, now permanently. We analyze the impact of this rule change on coaches’ substitution decisions, comparing 836 games with three possible substitutions and 1,000 games with five possible substitutions in the six seasons from 2017/2018 to 2022/2023 of the Bundesliga (first division of German men’s football). In addition to team statistics, data on substitutions were collected. The results show that the rule change has changed the behavior of the coaches in terms of the number of substitutions made and the timing of substitutions. While using more of the allowed substitutions is good for the home team, the home bias is reduced by the rule change